


Voices Under A Midnight Moon

by TalesOfBelle



Series: 61137txt [1]
Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Developing Friendship, F/M, Friendship, Imagine trying to brood but a himbo thinks that midnight is the perfect time to make introductions, but he's actually kind of sensitive about it, mirage has an interaction that doesn't end in a throat-punch, soft, wraith gives herself relationship advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfBelle/pseuds/TalesOfBelle
Summary: Wraith doesn't like to sleep. She prefers to slip out into the night to find a high point to sit and brood upon. On the third night of this sleepless ritual, she has company.
Relationships: Mirage | Elliott Witt/Wraith | Renee Blasey
Series: 61137txt [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716643
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Voices Under A Midnight Moon

There are things that can disturb a person when she's trying to sleep. For most it's the hum of machinery, or the night-noises of little creatures and insects that are unbothered by the Repulsor Tower. For Wraith it is that when she closes her eyes and feels herself start to drift, she's not sure where her landing point is going to be.

Still in her bunk eight hours later, or in another dimension looking down at herself struggling to fight off a single custodian. The connective tissue between them is there - the bunk she's meant to sleep in on the nights preceding the Apex Games is startlingly similar to the bunk she remembers back at the facility.

The goosebumps on her skin as she makes her way outside of the dormitories aren't from the cold of night. About 1AM, she reckons, and the guard shift is confirmed to her when a voice mutters in her inner-ear, _"Wait a second._

_Now go."_

The truth is that she doesn't need to avoid guards now that she's here, she's authorized, when they say they exist for her protection they're telling the truth. It's not the ambiguous sort of doublespeak where she's not sure which way the protection goes. She's a Legend now. That means something, to someone.

Still, there's something comforting about the cover of darkness and the act of being unknown. She can hop a chain-link fence easy, stalk her way over a landing strip, and hoist herself up the dropship. Like some kind of nightcreature. Unseen. The night is bright here, and under the moon she casts a shadow over the metal surface of the craft she's sat upon. Way off in the distance there are moving figures taller than the ocean - Leviathans. If she listens carefully, she can hear their call carry across the waves.

She hadn't seen the ocean before she arrived in this world. She was too young when the wrong person listened to what she was trying to tell them - about the voices, the strange mutterings (and sometimes screams) in her head. She was too young to understand that they weren't psychosis, and that the people who told her that's what it was didn't believe that either. And now when she sleeps she remembers the facility and can't tell if she's been transported back, or if she's just a silent witness.

Thoughts are cyclical, she realizes. She keeps coming back to those moments. This is the third night spent sat cross-legged on the dropship looking towards the Kings Canyon island and the silhouettes of leviathans.

Straining to hear them call.

This is the first time, however, that she hears struggling behind her. A man, talking to himself, saying something like "C'mon, up I go, should look into hardlight, give myself a leg-up, or nanobots, or borrow Ajay's thing, she'd totally let me, would be easy, just gotta--" There's a final heft from him and Wraith can see the man lying prone just over the edge of the dropshift (he's fortunate the shape of it is all bulk and hard edges, and not a slope he could slip down). He looks at her and grins, "Hey."

She knows his name, Elliott Witt. A non-threat. She wouldn't want to follow him around a corner in a firefight, too unpredictable, but outside of the games and in plain-view he's harmless. She has nothing to say to him and turns her back - again looking out towards the ocean.

"You know I don't think we're meant to be out here. Not that it matters. Celebrities and all that. I bet we could take this out for a joyride if I just gave whoever's in charge of that an autograph for their kid. Or themselves. You ever flown? I've done simulations, can't be that hard. Just point the nose away from the ground."

Wraith's shoulders sag - the tension in her body released and it means she's either preparing to lash out like a whip, because who hasn't thrown a punch Elliott's way? Or she's actually just relaxing.

Elliott seems oblivious, on his feet and walking towards her - his boots making noise on the metal below his feet. No subtlety, "I wouldn't ask the pilot though. Already tried, she's a hardass. Gotta go above her head if you want behind the stick of this thing. Ah--" And he's sitting down next to her, there's a sheen of sweat on his forehead - he must have found the climb up much more difficult than she did. Or he missed completely the maintenance ladder that she had used, "What'd you say your name was?"

"Mnh. Wraith." Her voice is impassive, an attempt to remain detached. She doesn't know why he's here and she'd rather deal with insomnia on her own terms.

"No I mean our not-made-up names. I'm Elliott. You probably already know that. I just don't think I caught yours. We haven't really spoke. But hey we might get put on a team together so..." He shoots fingerguns. Not at her. Just... Vaguely all around, "Worth getting to know each other, right?"

"Wraith." She says again, more insistent this time.

Elliott purses his lips, nodding, internalizing her voice, her body language, disregarding the parts that tell him to get lost and focusing on the whole 'she hasn't hit me yet' thing, "Cool, cool, alright. Got another one like that. With the mask? People've been saying they're part bat but y'know everyone's got a thing. Guy's gotta respect the showmanship."

Wraith sighs, she looks sidelong at Elliott and he's just smiling like a puppy-dog. If she hadn't seen him poring over design schematics for his gear she'd suspect his head of being empty.

"We all good out here? Bit of a night-owl myself. Couldn't help noticing you sneaking out every night and figure if it's a habit then something's going on. Which okay, everyone here has something going on, but you know what I mean. I can beat it if you want me to," He juts his thumb back the way he came, gesturing over the length of the dropship - though the expression in his eyes is saying, 'please don't make me climb back down,' and a voice in Wraith's head softly says,

_"Don't."_

Wraith frowns. She thinks about herself in a parallel place - the voices called out tactics, she knew how it worked. She'd even sent her own messages into the void, after taking a hit and not wanting it to happen to a dozen other of her selves. This wasn't tactics. This was relationship advice from across the void, and it persists, _"Talk to him."_

Elliott doesn't perceive any of this, the voices are a private affair and he's only heard rumours of Wraith's pre-cognizance. All he knew is that she had portals and that the void is a freaky thing to mess around with. But for this moment, at least, he doesn't push for a response and keeps that smile. It's all remarkably patient, for him.

"Can't sleep," She'd learned long ago to trust herself.

"I mean. Figured," Elliott grins - then sort of leans forward like he's trying to apologetically appease her, "Not to dismiss the whole sharing thing. Guessing that's a big step for you. People just don't sit under the moon all dramatic because they're getting the full eight hours."

He talks too much, Wraith thinks, at a certain point it just becomes white noise. You learn to listen to the first five words and the last five words, "Don't like sleeping," Wraith clarifies, "Bad dreams."

"Oh I know all about that. This one time had this nighm-- niff-- bad dream that I'd deploy a decoy and they'd just be wearing my underwear and then Ajay points and laughs. Don't know why it's always Ajay. 'S weird. What's yours?"

"No."

"Alright," Elliott brushes a hand back through his hair. He could appreciate when someone drew a line, and Wraith was drawing hers. It was beyond 'Joining her for midnight brooding' but before 'actually sharing any details'. He can respect that, "Mind if I sit here? Nice night. Moon's huge. Never realized you could see the Levi-- Lethiva-- Le-- Big fellas from out here. Wild."

"Fine," Wraith seems content to talk as little as possible. She can let Elliott fill the space where her words aren't, like she lets him fill the empty space besides her.

There's parallel versions, she is sure, that have turned him away. Versions that have shared with him. She could close her eyes, focus herself, and see the array of possibilities left and right. Thousands of permutations of something that wasn't bloodshed. Just company, and the choice of whether she should accept it.

She smiles, and Elliott takes that smile as a cue to keep babbling into the early hours of the morning.


End file.
